Abstract
ABSTRACTThe lack of convergence towards liberal democracy in some African countries reflects neither a permanent state of political aberration, nor necessarily a prolonged transitional phase through which countries pass once the “right” conditions are met. Examining the cases of two ruling parties, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the African National Congress in South Africa, we develop the concept of productive liminality to explain countries suspended (potentially indefinitely) in a status “betwixt and between” mass violence, authoritarianism, and democracy. On the one hand, their societies are in a liminal status wherein a transition to democracy and socio-economic “revolution” remains forestalled; on the other hand, this liminality is instrumentalized to justify the party’s extraordinary mandate characterized by: (a) an idea of an incomplete project of liberation that the party alone is mandated to fulfil through an authoritarian social contract, and (b) the claim that this unfulfilled revolution is continuously under threat by a coterie of malevolent forces, which the party alone is mandated to identify and appropriately sanction.
Highlights
In the second, related part of our argument, we develop the concept of productive liminality, to help explain how the ambiguity and malleability of this liminal space betwixt and between authoritarianism and democracy can actively and productively be harnessed by regimes as a means of reproducing power
We select two such countries governed by liberation movements to develop this analysis: South Africa under the African National Congress (ANC) and Rwanda under the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)
The RPF has effectively struck a balance; it is not so authoritarian as to provoke international scorn yet remains authoritarian enough to secure its hold on power for years to come. The durability of this liminal status, in the context of slow and uneven growth, depends on the RPF’s continued success in maintaining popular expectations, bringing people into its favour and expelling those who pose a threat. Both the RPF and ANC have struggled to accomplish the political and socioeconomic transformation of their societies and address all of the unreconciled, structural tensions inherited from the former regimes
Summary
We select two such countries governed by liberation movements to develop this analysis: South Africa under the African National Congress (ANC) and Rwanda under the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
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